I am a mom to two great kids. DS21 and DD17 as well as 2 dogs - Belle 4yo and Rani 3yo keep me busy. I also babysit for my sister and she has 2 great kids that are 10yo and 4yo, they are so much fun. But as you can see my house a zoo. I will be documenting my life over the next year for a number of reasons but mostly for fun.

Background

Tuesday, January 31, 2012

This is the website that inspired me to "clean up" my life for good. I have gotten off to a great start but one area certainly lacking a fresh start has been my bedroom. It has become the place where I hide all the junk I clean up but don't want to part with yet. Truthfully it has become a small pathway around my bed with the walls and floor closing in on me. It is time for a small diversion 15 minutes at a time for one short month to bring peace, harmony, and health back to my bedroom.

Friday, January 27, 2012

I am still attempting to finish last week's closet organization. I have a pile of recycle still sitting, a number of old phones to drop off at the police station, and a box of light bulbs to relocate among other various odds and ends. I also have a number of coffee cups from dish sets. We use the dishes but I don't think we ever used the cups, likewise, I doubt we ever will, those will be packed and wrapped for the next donation pick up. School began last week and I am taking 2 classes for the next 8 weeks leaving little time for anything much less organizing. While cooking eggs for breakfast one morning I started to quickly sift through the cabinet over the stove. No time for a before picture. But here is the after:

I added the adjustable wire shelf. Before, everything was stacked on top of each other making opening the doors a hazard from falling food. It turned out to be a great time to tackle this area because I found bugs in the whole wheat pasta. Even they are eating healthy these days. Five or Six boxes of pasta went into the trash and all new boxes will be placed in plastic bags or sealed glass containers immediately.

Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Watch out Belle there may be an avalanche. That closet is stacked up to the point it is dangerous. You cannot tell by this picture but there is a 38" x 19" floor in there. The closet is over the basement stairwell, therefore it gets increasingly deeper with each shelf. The middle shelf is 2.5 feet deep and the top one is just over 3 feet deep.

We had most of the plastic containers in the closet but could never find a lid no matter how hard I tried to keep them together. We also had some in a deep drawer in the kitchen. Rani cannot believe the drawer it now empty. "Where did it go, Rani?" It is all now matched and neatly stacked in the closet thanks to Florica.

I can even step into the closet. I realized I had way to many paper plates so we will be bringing a number of those down to the camper we keep in the country for weekend getaways. Those pink tubs are full of plates and cups. Paper bowls are stacked up on the center shelf and more packages of plates are on top of a new wire shelf I had purchased years ago but could not get DH to hang. The brace can be seen in the upper right hand corner. I now have some place to hang my guest's coats.

Classes begin this week and I have chosen 2 classes this quarter. The History class looks like it will require an extreme amount of work and writing assignments. I anticipate smaller challenges for the next eight weeks.

Tuesday, January 10, 2012

Week 2 began with a look at my daughters room. She just moved into her brother's old room in Aug when he moved out. One would think her room would not need purging or organizing in such a short time but it did. Here is the before. First was her dresser. The book shelf was a mess and vertical space was not used effectively.

The second area was her closet. We had run out of boxes and nothing was where it was supposed to be, shirts mixed with shorts, long sleeve and camis all together...

After a complete purging of her clothes we have 2 boxes of give-aways. Then during a quick run to Walmart for organizational supplies we found these great pink sterilite boxes on clearance for $3.00. We bought all they had (16). I would have liked to have gotten clear boxes to make it easier to determine what was inside but for the price I went with the pink and they match her black and pink room. Once I find my label maker I will be able to label all the boxes for easier identification.

It is much easier now for her to find what she wants and as a bonus she personally cleaned up her desk before I could even get pictures. I had planed to tackle that area my next round in her room. Hopefully she can keep this up for a while.